The move to agile has led many teams to adopt a pyramid testing strategy. The test automation pyramid strategy calls for automating tests at three different levels. Unit testing represents the base and biggest percentage of this test automation pyramid. Next comes, service layer, or API testing. And finally, GUI tests sit at the top. The pyramid looks something like this:
Productivity is a rare property and skill that should never be underestimated. Often, it’s the secret ingredient that can take a small business from doing just okay to exceeding all expectations. When you know how to get things done successfully in a shorter period of time—you simply achieve more. These productivity apps are integral to small business success.
Automated testing or test automation is a method in software testing that makes use of special software tools to control the execution of tests and then compares actual test results with predicted or expected results. All of this is done automatically with little or no intervention from the test engineer. Automation is used to to add additional testing that may be too difficult to perform manually.
Trello gives teams a visual way to collaborate over tasks, projects, approval flows, or the next big idea. It is based on one of the most efficient methodologies ever conceived — Lean. Lean and kanban (lean’s visual project management system) was used by Toyota manufacturers to manage projects as early as the 1960s. Trello is totally free for as many cards, lists and comments as you like.
Testim.io leverages machine learning for the authoring, execution, and maintenance of automated test cases. We use dynamic locators and learn with every execution. The outcome is super fast authoring and stable tests that learn, thus eliminating the need to continually maintain tests with every code change. Netapp, Verizon Wireless, Wix.com and others run over 300,000 tests using Testim.io every month.

Although this a complete list of the best software for small businesses in each of these categories, there might be other options that work better for your company. Click on the category headers below for a full list of available products. For personalized recommendations based on your business needs call one of our Technology Advisors at 877-822-9526 for a free, 5-minute consultation.

A test automation framework is an integrated system that sets the rules of automation of a specific product. This system integrates the function libraries, test data sources, object details and various reusable modules. These components act as small building blocks which need to be assembled to represent a business process. The framework provides the basis of test automation and simplifies the automation effort.
Drawbacks? Well, unlike some of the other automated android testing tools on our list, there’s no open source capability. To run tests, you need to connect your mobile devices via Wifi or USB, which can be tricky in certain locations, and you must install the Ranorex control app on each mobile device before you run a test on it. One final thing to note is that, unlike many rival testing tools, Ranorex does not have a device viewer when recording, so you’ll need access to the mobile device.
Katalon Studio is a powerful test automation solution for mobile, Web, and API testing. And it is completely FREE! It provides a comprehensive set of features for test automation, including recording actions, creating test cases, generating test scripts, executing tests, reporting results, and integrating with many other tools in the software development lifecycle.
Automatically testing your web application is a good way to ensure that new versions of your application don't introduce bugs and regressions. Automation of your web application testing also allows your development team to make changes and refactor code with more confident, as they can quickly verify the functionality of the application after every change.
Selenium is possibly the most popular open-source test automation framework for Web applications. Being originated in the 2000s and evolved over a decade, Selenium has been an automation framework of choice for Web automation testers, especially for those who possess advanced programming and scripting skills. Selenium has become a core framework for other open-source test automation tools such as Katalon Studio, Watir, Protractor, and Robot Framework.

Known for its ease-of-use, FinancialForce Accounting for Salesforce is a robust accounting software that is highly-recommended for small and large businesses. As it is cloud-based users are bound to boost operation efficiency at very minimal cost. A key feature is the Salesforce Accounting application, which is capable of doing tasks far beyond bookkeeping and processing transactions.

“When we refer to automation frameworks, it is easiest to understand with the functional testing areas,” says Kandukuri. “You are providing commonly used methods to improve the efficiency of automated tasks. With limited knowledge of how the test case is set up, a tester can fall back on the framework to refer to simple statements and implement the test cases.”
A data-driven performance testing tool, IBM is a commercial solution that operates in Java, .Net, AJAX, and more. The IBM Rational Functional Tester provides unique functionality in the form of its “Storyboard” feature, whereby user actions can be captured and then visualized through application screenshots. IBM RFT will give an organization information about how users are using their product, in addition to how users are potentially breaking their product. RFT is integrated with lifecycle management systems, including the Rational Quality Manager and the Rational Team Concert. Consequently, it’s best used in a robust IBM environment.
Zoho Books is a smart accounting solution designed to manage small businesses’ cash flow and finances. It is known for its ease-of-use, helping users make intelligent business decisions. Being a part of the Zoho product stable, the product does not only offer hassle-free accounting but excellent support, uptime and security as well. It is capable of sending customers professional invoices and even accepting payments online. If you want to explore its features signing up for a free Zoho Books free trial here is fast.
Cloud-based accounting and invoicing management platform Sage Business Cloud Accounting is designed to cater to small businesses. Its core functionalities include accounting, compliance and expense management. What sets Sage Business Cloud Accounting apart from its sister app Sage 50c is that the former is an add-on service that allows for the integration of the latter to the cloud, resulting in cloud storage and accessibility for all your accounting data. This combination makes Sage Business Cloud Accounting better than ever.
Selenium is used for cross-browser testing and for web-browser test automation. To use this tool, the testers must have advanced programming skills for writing complex and advanced test scripts. These skills are required to build automation frameworks and libraries for specific testing needs. Selenium is an open source tool that is commonly used by developers and testers who are well versed with programming languages such as Java, C#, Perl, Python, Scala, Groovy, PHP & Ruby.
However, as businesses grow, they’ll likely need to implement more controls over their business processes and better alignment between information and operational technologies. At this stage, they should consider investing in business process management software to help them standardize processes and workflows for multiple departments and improve operational performance. (Not to be confused with general "business managment" software, "business process management" software carries a more specific definition and set of technical requirements. Follow the link above to read our buyer's guide and learn more.)
IBM RFT is well suited for regression and functional testing. It is a data-driven testing platform that supports applications like .Net, Java, SAP, Flex, and Ajax. The scripting languages used by RFT are .Net and Java. One of the unique features of IBM RFT is Storyboard testing which simplifies test visualization by recording and visualizing user actions with the help of application screenshots in a storyboard format. It also allows editing using natural language. It also offers integration with IBM Jazz application lifecycle management like IBM Rotational Team Concert and Rational Quality Manager.

Test automation helps in reducing regression testing time and cutting down the time to market with significant cost savings on a long-term basis. However, a clear automation strategy and roadmap are key to ensuring the right return on investment on your automation initiatives. With disparate application architecture, multiple environments, third-party integrations and multiple user devices, a standardized and consistent automation approach is needed to ensure high reusability, ease of maintenance and lower upfront costs.

So what should small businesses look for in such an app? For starters, ease-of-use, integration and security should be taken into consideration. However, what counts most is the pricing. As most of these players are on a tight budget, we recommend that they subscribe to a cloud-based solution as they provide customized processes, integrations and pricing flexibility.
Instead of creating the "tests" at the end, I suggest starting with examples at the beginning that can be run by a human or a software system. Get the programmer, tester, and product owner in a room to talk about what they need to be successful, to create examples, to define what the automation strategy will be, and to create a shared understanding to reduce failure demand. My preference is to do this at the story level — what some might call a minimum marketable feature — which requires a half-day to a week of work. George Dinwiddie, an agile coach in Maryland, popularized the term "the three amigos" for this style of work, referring to the programmer, tester, and analyst in these roles. Another term for the concept is acceptance test-driven development.
Test automation is a fundamental part of Agile. Various core practices of Agile, such as Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Delivery, Test-Driven Development (TDD), and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) rely on the efficiency and reliability of test automation. For teams using Agile methods, test automation impacts more than just the software being developed: successful test automation practices also highlight the culture change and importance of teamwork associated with Agile.

During my three years at Socialtext, I helped maintain a test tooling system through a user interface that was advanced for its time. O'Reilly took it as a case study in the book Beautiful Testing. The team at Socialtext uses the same framework today, although it now has several tests running at one time on Amazon's Electric Compute Cloud. Although we had a great deal of GUI-driving tests, we also had developer-facing (unit) and web services (integration) tests, a visual slideshow that testers could watch for every browser, and a strategy to explore by hand for each release. This combination of methods to reduce risk meant we found problems early.

Some software testing tasks, such as extensive low-level interface regression testing, can be laborious and time-consuming to do manually. In addition, a manual approach might not always be effective in finding certain classes of defects. Test automation offers a possibility to perform these types of testing effectively. Once automated tests have been developed, they can be run quickly and repeatedly. Many times, this can be a cost-effective method for regression testing of software products that have a long maintenance life. Even minor patches over the lifetime of the application can cause existing features to break which were working at an earlier point in time.